phoenix
by Nylex
Summary: We are two lonely people, walking a lonely road. And yet: walking together serves only to sharpen the emptiness. Because when we turn back to the light, the shadows remain inside of us. [Sevione]


**phoenix  
**

* * *

I love a man who doesn't exist.

And when I am with him, neither do I.

When I am at home, I become a housewife. My children muck through the house, carrying toads, brandishing new wands, getting into squabbles, scribbling on wallpaper. I wipe jam from sticky mouths and hands, tack crayon drawings on the walls, kiss the tops of their heads and heal their scraped knees. Every day, there's a million things to do, but somehow I get it all done. I put a roast in the oven, I scrub the kitchen table, and when my husband comes home from his exciting job at the Ministry, I am waiting for him, with lipstick and three freshly bathed children at my knees.

I listen to his heroic Auror tales, push food around on my plate, and keep my children from interrupting him. Ron loves me in a way I could never understand—fiercely, but carelessly, like a little boy with a brand new toy. He's a considerate lover and a _wonderful_ father; my babies adore him.

But sometimes I hate him.

I hate how much I've been reduced. I'm the Weasley Woman, the person I always hated. While I loved Molly, I always looked at her life with a sort of grim contempt, in an idle way: _I never want to be that person_. Bless her, of course—she opened her arms to me time after time, when the War became too much. Molly is a strong woman.

I am not that strong. Every day I reach for my wand and I think that I could walk away from it all. Slip away in the middle of the night, leave, run for anywhere—Romania, America, Italy, somewhere far away and with nobody to help me. I want to do something on my own.

Harry handed me my career. Just being associated with him could get me anything I wanted. I could become Prime Minister, because god knows Harry doesn't want the job. Ron does though, but I remind him daily that the Minister of Magic has little time to spend with his family, and that keeps him grounded. Ron would do anything for his family.

So when I have time to myself, I write letters to important people, my penmanship neat and orderly on the embossed paper, sealing the envelopes with a special crest. _From the Desk of Hermione Granger, Order of Merlin, First Class._ I go to events sometimes, giving speeches about the importance of treating all magical creatures with dignity and respect. There was an opportunity for me to argue my case in front of the Wizengamot, fighting for the rights of House Elves and Centaurs. I went into labor twenty minutes before my scheduled speech.

My selfishness consumes me, and then guilt cripples my brain. I can't think sometimes, my body moving on autopilot. How could I even think of walking away from this? The world adores me, my husband loves me dearly, and I cherish my children. But then I look down at my hands, calloused from washing dishes, and a wave of frustration will surge through me.

This is not what I wanted my life to be like.

And so I left. I really did leave, for twenty four hours. I packed an overnight bag and threw out my thumb for the Knight Bus, in a blind rage, upset over some spat with Ron. There was no destination in mind, no particular location or couch I could sleep on. Of course, I could go over Harry and Ginny's—naturally they would always have a place for me. But Ginny, who had two children already and was pregnant again a mere six months after little Albus had been born, might look at me with sorrow and pity. I couldn't stand to be pitied.

To this day, I don't know how I found him. I swear it. He found me, I think. I had been sitting at some small, secluded pub in the middle of a very small, muddy town, drinking away my anger and buildup of angst. I had been alone, and then suddenly, I wasn't.

"A married woman, alone in a pub? Are you waiting for someone, Miss Granger?"

My old professor. Severus Snape.

He was supposed to be dead. There was a memorial of him in the Ministry of Magic, hailing his righteous work in the War. What he had done was still murky and clouded, but the whole world assumed him dead.

I had fallen off my chair. And then slapped him. And then cried. All in very quick succession. Elation, rage, and some childhood fear had all flown through me, one right after the other.

He was taller and thinner than I remembered, a whetstone of a man, sharp angles and edges everywhere. Instead of his usual black he was wearing faded trousers and an old gray waistcoat. I remembered thinking that in his supposed grave, he was healthier looking than when he had been at Hogwarts.

Talking with him had been like striking flint and tinder. My brain, which had grown dusty and sluggish from lack of use, blazed with ideas and quips. Severus's personality is addictive, like a drug or a poison; he burns through my veins and lights up everything inside of me, like flipping a switch.

We did not have sex that time. Nor the time afterwards. I met him consistently, once a month, and for three months we just talked endlessly. We stayed up the whole night, sitting in his kitchen, drinking bottomless cups of tea and eating runny eggs for breakfast while the cold spring sun crept over the horizon.

But then the conversations turned into much more. My mind was not the only thing that sparked with interest when I was around him. I wanted him. And he clearly wanted me.

"You must be lonely, living out here by yourself," I said once. My ring was in my pocket and I imagined I could feel its weight, tugging down the hem of my coat.

Severus had tipped his teacup in a kind of salute, or praise; "I'm not lonely, Miss Granger. I've always been a solitary creature."

(I still thrill when he calls me Miss Granger. He pretends, like I do, that I never married. My life outside of his cottage doesn't exist.)

And so it leads naturally, the way things do. I kissed him and let him kiss me back; I gave myself over in a way that I'd never given to my husband. Even when I was on his lap, his cock buried up to the hilt, his mouth on my breast, I imagined he could see Ron's fingerprints still tattooed onto my skin. I would bite at his lips and we would tumble into bed, laughing and whispering like randy teens, experimenting and fondling as though we had been dating for years.

The first time, I had left before the sun risen. Barely an hour after he came inside me, I found myself back home, pouring myself a mug of brandy and peppermint tea. My things were already put away, changing into my nightie before even entering the house. I should have been a Slytherin, in all of my cunning.

Ron had stumbled into the kitchen, his hair sticking up in all directions. "Whassap, 'Mione?"

"Couldn't sleep," I replied easily.

"Kids?"

"In bed."

He sat down at the counter and I ruffled his hair, as though I hadn't used those same fingers to pull Severus towards me. Ron was simple, sweet, and naive. It had been too easy to fool him. Much too easy.

I'm ashamed to even write this.

I—

I slept with Ron that night. Less than two hours after being with my Professor. I fucked my husband with passion I didn't know I had in me, biting his shoulder and leaving angry red scratches up his back. He had been stunned, and then bawdy, exclaiming that he didn't know I had it in me. He wondered what had gotten into me tonight.

Earlier that evening, Severus had brought me to tears with his sweetness and gentleness. His studious examination of my pleasure and my reactions.

I fucked like a whore that night. I_ was_ a whore. I cried for my adulterer and moaned for my husband, begging and panting like a cheap slut.

And then the next morning I kissed my husband's cheek, laughed when he pinched my bum, and made breakfast for my children.

Two weeks later I was back at Severus's house, making love and talking endlessly, surviving on only our intellects and cheap tea. I wore Severus's shirts and we brewed potions together, complex potions, ones that I had never brewed before. We practiced spellwork and sometimes we simply read the paper together, eating dry toast and affectionately insulting one another.

"Does anyone else know you're alive?" I once asked him, resting my head on his shoulder.

He turned a page in the paper. "No."

My lover does not exist. He exists only for me, and only with Severus do I feel truly alive. Does that limit my selfishness? Even if I were to tell Ron, to beg for his forgiveness, he would never believe me. He would laugh and ask if I needed to be checked into St. Mungos, because Snape was definitely dead.

And I would tell Ron that I know he's alive. I've felt his heartbeat pressed against mine, I've kissed the spot on his neck where I feel his pulse, and I've touched his wrist, where his Dark Mark hides his veins. He's alive. And he's all mine. When I'm with him I feel like my old self, like a young student with her whole life ahead of her.

But when I am at home, I feel nothing but guilt.

* * *

I am in love with a married woman.

I know morality and ethics. I have long since slaughtered my conscience; I have murdered and tortured, destroyed and backstabbed. I have given orders and taken beatings. There is very little I have not endured, very few things which I have not experienced. I trained myself to avoid guilt as much as possible, to rationalize.

Rationalization is easy when it comes to Miss Granger. She's bored. She's frustrated. Life has not turned out how she planned. If my life was a sordid romance novel, the trashy kind which she has confessed to reading on more than one occasion, then I would be the lonesome mysterious stranger who rolls into town, to trim roses and gain the trust of tired housewives.

My guilt, surprisingly, does not stem from the idea of taking another man's wife. Ronald Weasley is a mild-mannered idiot, a perfectly pleasant ignoramus who reminds me strongly of a well-trained Labrador. How he wooed and won a charming, beautiful, enigmatic creature such as Hermione Granger is beyond me; from what I have gleaned from Miss Granger, Ron possesses the seduction techniques of a forceful toadstool. He's quite harmless. And from what I have seen, his children are not brats, and they seem to possess some modest portion of their mother in them.

No, my guilt stems from my infatuation with her. She is eighteen years my junior and I while I possess little moral standing, I confess the age gap between us makes me wary. Miss Granger was also my former student—I first met her at eleven years old. I graded her papers and watched her grow up into a beautiful, independent woman who had her wings clipped by domestic life. But the fact still remains that I was a man when she was still a child—and that simply cannot be changed.

When I saw her again, sitting alone at a bar with tear tracks down her face, I nearly didn't recognize her. Her hair, which had been boisterously wild and bushy as a teenager, had lengthened and the frizz had worked itself out from the weight. Of course she was older, but her body was still slender after three children; upon first glance, she was just another lonely, older single woman drowning her sorrows in drink.

But then she signaled for another drink, jutting her chin forward, and there was a flash of childish impatience on her face—and her expression caused me to approach her. I saw a glimpse of the schoolgirl she used to be, and I spoke to her anyway, compromising my very existence.

It was not until we began meeting regularly that I realized why she was meeting me. In an attempt to relive the old glory days, to revive the past, to start over. But I cannot start over—for that would mean going back to when she was still a little girl, foolishly in love with a moody ginger, and ignoring the advances of other boys her age.

When I try to tell her this, she ignores it. "I'm not a child, Severus," she would snap, and drink more of my brandy. Then she would sling a leg over my lap and kiss me, alcohol still on her tongue, and I can nearly feel the scars of bitterness beneath the layers of skin.

Her scars do not bother me. Neither does her cynicism. I do not hesitate in corrupting her.

We are two lonely people, walking a lonely road. And yet: walking together serves only to sharpen the emptiness. Because when we turn back to the light, the shadows remain inside of us. Miss Granger returns to her family, places her wedding ring back on her finger, and I return into my shell.

I pretend I do not wait for her to return. And she pretends that she is not counting the days until she can see me again.

Are we in love? Yes. There are as many different shades of love as there are hate—and I have experienced them all. Miss Granger's love is a shade all her own, something dark and furtive and strange. I have a place in her heart, somewhere, behind her family and her husband, which I am content with. I do not ask for more.

She has often spoken of leaving her husband. "But the kids, Severus, I don't know what I would do about the kids," she laments. As if her three most loved beings are simply expensive Tiffany lamps that she doesn't want to risk transporting.

"When I'm with you," she once said, laying on my chest, "I feel as though anything is possible. As if I could _fly_. Do you?"

"Hardly," I had responded.

"But then when I'm home, I feel…trapped. By Ron, by Harry, by everyone. Do you know what would happen if I left him? It would be a scandal to turn the world over. Ron and I are practically royalty in the Wizarding world."

_Disappear with me,_ I want to suggest. _Let us be ghosts, and float away from our old lives._

If we were children I would voice this. But I am too old—and she is too selfless. She is too ethical to leave her family and life behind, and she keeps herself bound with the golden, shining chains of martyrdom.

But once every few months, she slips the chains off, and we dance on the edge of a blade.

One day it will all have to end. By someone's hand—perhaps not my own. Perhaps by Miss Granger's heart, perhaps by her mind, but it must end. Soon.

Not today.

Today, she is mine.

* * *

_Bit dark. Just experimenting. I imagine R/H would have an intensely unhappy marriage. _**-nylex**


End file.
